A weblog on mainly militairy models in mainly 1/72. Expect a lot of posts on tank & figure models from Revell, Italeri and Armourfast.

Saturday, 4 February 2012

PzH2000

Time for a new blog-entry since the last one was far too long ago! Let't take a look at the PzH2000 of Revell (no. 03121).

The PzH2000 is short for PanZerHowitzer 2000 (Armored Howitzer 2000) and is a self propelled howitzer. The most promiment features are the turret and barrel which are large for even a howitzer. (The barrel for example is 8m long) The vehicle weights 55 tons and the costs per unit are about €4.000.000. The PzH2000 can fire rounds accurately up to 35 km. A special thing this vehicle can do is 'shoot and scoot', meaning it can shoot rounds and drive away immediately afterwards to an other place to fire on the target again. This is to prevent enemy aircraft pin-pointing it's position. You might wonder why howitzers are still used in this time of aircraft and jets. One of the reasons is that a howitzer can give accurate heavy fire support for 24 hours a day 7 days a week for a fraction of the costs of air support.

The model of Revell is the only model of this vehicle availible in 1/72. (The Revell model no.03042 in 1/35 is also the only one availible in 1/35.) It has about 130 parts and is very detailed. The parts fit very well and look good. Only the headlightguars are a bit thick. There is a flaw is the back of the hull. It is not really clear how the backplate has to be fitted. If you put it more forewards you have a kind of 'step' on the back which is not there in reality. If you glue it more to the aft you end up with a hole in the back of the hull roof. This is not really a problem since it won't be seen once the turret is placed. An other part to watch is the 'barrelclip' (the thing that holds the barrel in place in transportmode). It has no clear location marks so there is a change you end up placing it to far to the left or right. The best way to place it is by putting the turret on the vehicle and direct barrel straight forward. Finally the real vehicle has a cloth 'sleeve' around the first part of the barrel, this is not molded in plastic so you have to make this yourself. I used aluminumfoil fot this.

On to the photo's! I painted mine as a vehicle used by the Dutch Royal Army:

This is a very detailded model but not difficult to build. It model can be improved by adding photo etched parts but Revell pressed the maximum out of the plastic. Recommended for all smale scale modern armor fans!